Trembling With Fear 11/11/2018

The Box

I woke into a world of blackness.  Stifling, compressed blackness.  The air was dying as I gulped at it.  I was on my back.  My arms rose, my fingers searched, found wood.  My feet kicked out.  They struck wood too.

I remembered.  I was in a coffin.  Buried deep underground.

After they fried me in the chair, they buried me in the jail yard.  Not that I was dead.  People like me, with black souls, we live forever.

The judge said I was the worst he’d ever met.  Cruel, vicious, with no remorse.

Remorse?  Why would I feel remorse?  I killed only one man, and that was when I was crazy mad on ice.  I enjoyed driving the knife into his chest, cutting out his heart, planting the red shiny throbbing meat on his face.  No, I couldn’t feel remorse.

I wasn’t dead … the thought kept buzzing in my brain.

I was alive, in a box, underground, no hope of escape.  Hey, who said no hope of escape?  I had to get out.  Like, if I was alive I couldn’t stay down here forever.  My fingers dug at the wood.  My nails scratched, scratched, scratched.  I sucked out the splinters, spat them away, kept clawing.

Perspiration sprouted on my face.  It trickled into my eyes, down my cheeks, down my neck.

How long would the oxygen last in the box?

I kicked up hard with my feet, again and again.  I figured if I could smash a hole in the coffin, then I could claw my way up through the soil.  But the wood was hard.  It didn’t give, didn’t budge.  I tasted salt in my mouth, the sweat was pouring out of my skin.

I sucked at the air.  I could still breathe.  I was sealed in a box but I could still breathe.  Hey, maybe it was someone’s idea of torture.  First they fry you, then they put you in a box where the air never runs out.  Shit!  Now I was kicking harder, harder.  My toes were in agony.   I curled them over to lessen the pain, kept on kicking.  My hands were up now, my fingers scratching, clawing, scraping.  The splinters went in deeper under my nails.  I sucked them out.  They felt as long as toothpicks.  I spat them away, tasting blood mixed in with the salty sweat.

I figured they wouldn’t put a murderer in a fancy coffin.  Like, the coffin would be made of really cheap wood, right?  So I kept kicking.  Then I used my fists, pounding on the wood above my head.  I had superhuman strength.  I lashed out, fists and feet.  Sooner or later the wood would split.  Once it did, I could force my way out and claw my way to the surface.

The wood was solid as steel.

A voice laughed beside me.

“Well, Kincaid, together again.”

I punched the air with one hand, struck flesh.  I recognized the voice.  It was Webster, the man I’d murdered.

“What are you doing here?” I screamed.

“Those of us who die innocent, we get to make requests.  I asked to spend the rest of eternity with you, Kincaid, in your coffin.”

“Why?”

In the darkness I felt Webster’s body turning toward me.  I felt his hands groping my neck, my face, exploring its way down my body.  I tried to push him away.  I had no strength.  He shifted even closer.  His breath was foul on my face.  “Relax, Kincaid.  There’s nothing you can do.  We’re going to be in this box together for all time.  Now it’s my time to be a little crazy…”